Technology | Media | Telecommunications

Wednesday, March 06, 2013

Why OTT Video will Continue to Disrupt the Market

Over-the-top (OTT) video entertainment had a banner year in 2012. It became a turning point for legacy pay-TV service providers. The savvy companies acknowledged the OTT phenomenon and have learned to adapt to the new market realities. The laggards are slowly coming to the conclusion that nothing will halt the market fragmentation caused by the adoption of OTT content.

Meanwhile, it looks like 2013 will be just as disruptive as last year. comScore released data from its latest market study which demonstrates that nearly 180 million U.S. Internet users watched 36.2 billion online content videos in January, while the number of video advertising views reached 9.1 billion.

Top 10 Video Content Properties by Unique Viewers

Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in January with 150 million unique viewers, followed by Facebook.com with 57 million, VEVO with 50.1 million, NDN with 49.1 million and Yahoo! Sites with 43.7 million.

Nearly 36.2 billion video content views occurred during the month, with Google Sites generating the highest number at 12.3 billion and Facebook reaching an all-time high with more than 425 million. Google Sites had the highest average engagement among the top ten properties.

Top 10 Video Ad Properties by Video Ads Viewed

Americans viewed 9.1 billion video ads in January, with Google Sites ranking first with 1.8 billion ads. BrightRoll Video Network came in second with 1.5 billion, followed by Hulu with 1.4 billion, Adap.tv with 1.1 billion and LiveRail.com with 957 million.

Time spent watching video ads totaled 3.5 billion minutes, with BrightRoll Video Network delivering the highest duration of video ads at 849 million minutes. Video ads reached more than 50 percent of the total U.S. population an average of 58 times during the month.

Hulu delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 57, while CBS Interactive delivered an average of 21 ads per viewer, earning it a spot on the chart as it drew increased viewers for specialty programming such as the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show and several awards shows such as the People’s Choice Awards.

Top 10 YouTube Partner Channels by Unique Viewers

The January 2013 YouTube partner data revealed that video music channel VEVO maintained the top position in the ranking with 48.9 million viewers. Fullscreen held on to the #2 position with 35.4 million viewers, followed by Maker Studios Inc. with 34.8 million, Warner Music with 25.9 million and ZEFR (formerly MovieClips) with 25.6 million.

Among the top 10 YouTube partners, Machinima demonstrated the highest engagement (66 minutes per viewer), followed by Maker Studios Inc. (46 minutes per viewer). VEVO streamed the greatest number of videos (552 million), followed by Machinima (473 million).

Other findings from the January 2013 study include:

83.5 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.

The duration of the average online content video was 5.7 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes.

Video ads accounted for 20.1 percent of all videos viewed and 1.7 percent of all minutes spent viewing video online.